So how long will it take before the replacement is announced? That, essentially, is the big question facing BAE Systems this week, when the defence group unveils its annual results.

The replacement isn’t so much the £31bn proposal for a new submarine class to succeed Vanguard and carry Britain’s nuclear deterrent (although that’s an important question for the company in itself), but more the identity of a successor to Ian King, BAE’s chief executive, who has been in command since 2008.

The company stuck its periscope above the surface last summer in an effort to identify the next boss and – after a couple of large orders failed to arrive as expected at the back end of last year – investors are growing increasingly keen to learn who might have their hands on the controls during the next phase of gargantuan defence projects.

There are also a few rumblings in the shareholder ranks, with some fretting that the group might give up the fight to maintain the dividend. As analysts at Barclays put it: “[BAE] resides on the wrong side of current credit rating thresholds: the share buyback programmes have ceased, the circa £5.3bn pension deficit weighs heavy on metrics and the slowing of cash prepayments make the dividend look increasingly burdensome.”

Speak up, HSBC – are you staying or going?

With a bit of luck, today might finally spell the end of HSBC’s interminable tease: its frequent threats to quit the United Kingdom unless we all start being a bit nicer to it.

The bank has been playing that game for years, which has perplexed many punters who reckon the scandal-prone lender should really be asking our permission to stay. Anyway, the HSBC board meeting today has triggered speculation that it might finally announce a decision.

Still, like a whining child that wears down a weak parent, HSBC seems to have been rewarded for its poor behaviour. Since announcing a review of where its HQ is based, a number of changes have been made.

The bank levy has been watered down and replaced with an eight-percentage-point surcharge on corporation tax, which is regarded as beneficial to HSBC, as the size of its balance sheet meant it paid more than other banks. Meanwhile, the rules governing the ringfencing of banks’ high-street operations from the riskier investment banking businesses have been clarified, which again seems to benefit the outspoken HSBC – aka the world’s vocal bank.

Centrica review gives shareholders the chills

Most people view cuts in the cost of heating their home as a positive. But not always in the City.

British Gas has announced three reductions in its prices since last summer and with its owner, Centrica, set to unveil results this week, the Square Mile is worrying how much this – along with the mild winter – might impact on the group’s profitability.

Still, there are cost cuts and cost cuts – and the melancholy triggered in Centrica shareholders by fewer folk shivering in their homes this winter has been neatly offset by group’s internal cost-cutting programme.

Chief executive Iain Conn is aiming to save £750m over five years, with net job losses of about 4,000. He is expected to tell the market on Thursday how well he’s getting on.

Alongside all that, shareholders will also be looking for a few lines about the next stages in the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) supply review, which was launched after regulator Ofgem said there were reasonable grounds for suspecting that features of the energy market were preventing, restricting or distorting competition. In July, the CMA said that households had been charged £1.2bn a year more than they would have been in a competitive market – cheery news for punters, less so for shareholders.